In general, a crimp terminal is crimped and connected to a conductor of an electric wire by disposing the conductor in a barrel and crimping the barrel.
As a connection method of a terminal to an electric wire, a connection method which includes a temporary crimping process of inserting a plurality of enamel-coated conductor wires into a crimp connector in advance and then applying temporary crimping to the crimp connector by mechanical pressurizing means, in which the temporary crimping is to temporarily crimp the crimp connector such that the cross-sectional area of both ends or one end of the cross section orthogonal to an axial direction of the crimp connector is reduced, while suppressing expansion of both ends or one end due to pressurization by an external force, is known (refer to PTL 1).
Further, a technique of suppressing cracking of a terminal during crimping by using a crimp terminal in which a core wire barrel is provided with a substantially rectangular bottom plate having a plate surface parallel to an axial direction of a core wire, and at least two side plates provided to substantially vertically extend upward from both sides of the bottom plate, and the two side plates are arranged in a staggered form along the axial direction of the core wire on both sides of the bottom plate is also known (refer to PTL 2).
On the other hand, in an electric wire which is used in an automobile, due to a rapid increase in in-vehicle wiring place according to an increase or computerization of in-vehicle equipment, a reduction in weight of an in-vehicle electric wire is strongly demanded in order to improve fuel economy, and moreover, an electric wire having flexibility which can be wired in a limited space is required. For this reason, an electric wire having both high conductivity and lightweight properties, or an electric wire provided with a fiber conductor composed of fibers having electric conductivity, such as a carbon fiber, for example, or metal-plated fibers with electric conductivity imparted thereto by performing plating processing on a non-conductive fiber such as an aramid fiber, in order to obtain a cable, is used. The fiber conductor is excellent in a reduction in weight, tensile strength, and bendability, and therefore, the fiber conductor is expected as a conductor of an ultra-fine electric wire (for example, an electric wire having a cross-sectional area of less than or equal to 0.05 (sq)).